Strands of Grey
by theGreatMissJJ
Summary: Tell me, Ginny whispered, Tell me how you want it, Cho.


She was a glass house.

Fragile and beautiful, clear as crystal. She played with a shining thread of glistening black hair, reflections of water running down her face to cover the tears that had stopped flowing long ago. Twisting strands of hair about her fingers, she traced the rivulets of rain down the diamond- paned windows.

She used to laugh at how the world never changed. Every year she was still beautiful, still fragile, still clear as crystal. Now she never laughed, and the world had shattered about her ears. If a wellspring of chuckles still bubbled within her, she could have found the urge to laugh whenever Draco Malfoy walked past, drawing his tattered robes about him with shreds of dignity. Whenever Harry Potter fumbled with her fastenings. Whenever Hermione Granger forgot an answer. Whenever Ronald Weasley failed to save a goal. But she was as a glass house, fragile, beautiful, and blank.

"The library is closed, Miss Weasley."

Madam Pince's voice reverberated among the stacks but she feared no discovery. Tucked away in the corner, she was invisible. She knew distractions weren't forthcoming, that Madam Pince avoided her like the plague, that her position of power allowed her time to herself, undisturbed. Researching, she had told the librarian. Her word was never questioned.

Being Head Girl had its advantages.

"I won't be but a minute, Madam Pince."

She heard the rustle of wool but soon forgot the sound of the girl's voice. She forgot a great many things these days: the day of the week, the time of day, the Charms assignments. She forgot what she was called and remembered the name of her House. She forgot colours and remembered only black and white. She forgot faces and remembered only names.

Cedric Diggory had become but a memory in her mind, a faceless name, a warmthless body. Harry Potter was but a title, a title that belonged to a sweet child with rage behind his eyes. Roger Davies was nothing a Quidditch Captain, his name lost in the annals of Hogwarts history.

"Miss Weasley, what is the meaning of this?"

Miss Weasley. She could recall the name but not the face. Her fingers tightened around her hair with lingering resentment. She recalled a Quidditch match, seemingly years ago, in a time when noise had volume and light had brightness, when the elusive glimmer of gold slipped from her hands.

The approach was silent.

She never heard the youngest Weasley's arrival upon the marble floor of the library, did not hear anything, did not feel anything, did not see smell anything.

She was only aware of red.

She released her hair. The black strands unwound slowly and she watched the blood flow again through her hands.

"There you are," the other girl said, "They're waiting for you."

She wanted to close her eyes to shut out the sea of red that swam before her eyes.

"Tell them I'll be there in a minute."

Miss Weasley did not leave, but fixed eyes of a colour she could not name upon her own. She let a curtain of black sweep across her face, drawing a blind between herself and the shock of colour before her. She was content with her world of black and white.

The redhead brought her hand up to brush strands of black hair away from Cho's face. Miss Weasley's freckles stood out in sharp relief to her translucent white skin and it made her want to curl within herself to protect against the brilliant assault. She gasped in pain as sharpness snapped behind her eyes, traveling to the root of her head.

"You have a few grey hairs, Cho."

The other girl extended a freckled hand and dropped two sparkling strands into her outstretched palm. "I'll see you at the prefects' meeting, Cho."

When the redhead had gone, she was glad to return to her monochrome world. She let the white hairs fall to the floor.

How subtly the shifts of power occurred between two poles. The balance now swayed in favour of the brave, the Gryffindors, with their cleanly pressed robes and open faces. She thought abstractedly how brilliantly red was set off by graded tones of grey. Young Mr. Weasley had eyes of a different colour than his sister, eyes that only looked at Granger, eyes that avoided Malfoy's at all costs.

The Slytherins seemed to her a modern portrayal of da Vinci's_ The Last Supper_, elegant, beautiful, and decaying in what remained of their world. Miss Parkinson still hung on Malfoy's arm with smug grace; Malfoy wore her arm with elegant disdain. Parkinson wore her expensive robes with care, drawing attention away from their shabby state by painting her face white with flowering dark lips, and Malfoy's threadbare cloak hung on his frail shoulders with as much sophistication as it always had.

"Any further motions?" asked the Head Boy. There was an assorted murmuring as the room answered in the negative. He dismissed them. "Meeting adjourned."

"Hey Herm," Weasley said as the Gryffindor prefects filed out the door, "Do you reckon Harry will be at dinner?" The question was voiced too loud, purposefully and artfully. Cho turned her head away from Weasley as all heads turned toward him.

She could feel Granger's fleeting glance.

"I don't know, Ron," Granger said softly.

She imagined in Granger's eyes what she could not hear in her voice: the flash of jealousy, the bite of envy as Harry Potter spent his nights between her thighs and not the bookish Gryffindor's. But she had long since forgotten the face of jealousy, as she had long forgotten the sound of love.

"Leave well alone," the girl Weasley murmured, locking eyes with Cho across the room.

Brown, she remembered. Her eyes are brown.

"Jealous, Weasley?" a voice drawled from the corner. "Potter's found a berth for his vessel and yours is yet to test virgin waters." Malfoy's voice held vestiges of its old pride, but was now overshadowed by malice and regret. Parkinson gave a dutiful titter and Malfoy's finely boned face creased into a smirk.

Weasley's face flamed with emotion, rivaling the brilliance of his sister's hair.

Blood, Cho thought, Her hair is the colour of blood.

But Weasley's embarrassment passed quickly.

How swiftly came the changes in power.

"Enough," Michael Corner intervened.

Malfoy shrugged and escorted the ornament hanging off his arm out the door. Weasley offered his to Granger in a similar fashion, but the bushy- haired Gryffindor did not acknowledge it. One by one, prefects from all Houses began to flow into the corridor outside: Slytherin, Gryffindor, Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff.

"Would you like to join me for dinner in the Hall, Cho?" Michael asked courteously.

She looked at him, so earnest and innocent. She was frightened by the expectant, gentle expression in his eyes. Opening her legs for him would be preferable to opening her soul to him.

"No," she said slowly. "I'm not hungry."

She did not miss the crestfallen look on Michael's face.

"I see," he answered. "Well, I'll see you in the common room, Cho."

She did not nod as he left the room.

"You should eat, Cho."

Again, she had not heard the girl Weasley's footfalls. But she was starting to remember. She could recreate a mass of red within her mind's eye.

"You're meeting Roger Davies for dinner." It was phrased as a statement, not a question and said with an emotion she used to recognize.

"Yes, I am, Miss Weasley," she answered. She turned to face her and was shocked anew by the intensity of colour that attacked her senses. The girl's face was narrow, not heart-shaped as she had thought, the freckles distributed evenly across her face, not sprinkled across her nose.

"Ginny," the girl corrected.

She smiled softly.

"Ginny."

She liked sex only because it makes her feel.

She rode Roger hard, unleashing demons within her, feeling the elusive sparkle glimmering on the horizon. It hung there on the verge, just beyond her reach.

"That's it, darling," Roger panted, "Come on, oh yeah, that's it-"

She slumped forward, exhausted, spent, and unsatisfied, on the edge, yet unable to make the leap. Roger continued to grind into her, but she knew she was as far from consummation as any virgin.

She let Roger finish up, finding it easier to spread her legs than spread her feelings. It wasn't because she couldn't enjoy sex, but because she couldn't release the feelings bottled inside. Afterwards, Roger curled into her, enfolding her with sweaty arms, but she found it hard to bend her body into his. She waited until his breathing slowed before peeling away from his embrace. She never could understand his craving for sleep after sex, when all she could do was lie awake wanting a fag or two. She clambered out of bed, wading through discarded items of clothing, thrown on the floor only a quarter of an hour ago. She found Roger's shirt and wrapped herself in it.

She never orgasmed, but Roger never knew that. She used to wonder if it was Roger, but after sleeping with Adrian Montague, Draco Malfoy, and after fumbling with Harry Potter in the dark, she came to the conclusion that she was incapable of reaching ecstasy, one of those unfortunate women who never came.

She knew Roger kept Muggle fags in his trouser pockets and delicately picked through them for one.

"_Incendio_," she whispered.

The flame that danced at the end of the wand seared her eyes, flickering like a mad nymph. She thought briefly of red, of blood, of fire, a riotous mass of colour that sprung from a girlish head. She wondered what it felt like to run her fingers through such flames. Would it burn?

She doused her eyes into the darkness of the room, washing her hands in the slippery waterfall of black that cascaded down her back, and threw the fag away.

She climbed back into bed and curled away from Roger in a corner of her bed.

"Cho?" he murmured sleepily.

She turned over.

"Shh, I'm here."

She let him tangle his fingers in her hair and watched his face as he returned to sleep. She spied glittering strands of white within Roger's hand.

Grey, she thought.

"Ginny."

Weasley hated to see her show up at Gryffindor Quidditch practices.

"We don't study _your_ moves," he told her acerbically.

She thought the order of the new world was ridiculous. She hated the new, ill-fitting pride Weasley wore, his devouring the cast-offs of Malfoy's fallen dignity, his strutting of his newfound status with bad taste.

"I'm here for Harry," she said, "Not for the game."

It was only a partial lie. She was not there for the game; she was there for Weasley. She knew he hated her and what little pleasure she was able to derive from life nowadays arose from baiting him.

She watched Harry fly, an effortless grace characterising his flight, belying the awkwardness he betrayed on the ground. He flew like a mature man, in control of his broom, his muscles twitching with every movement. She found his flight attractive, imagining what that power might be like in bed, although she couldn't say the same for when he was on the ground.

She was not alone in the stands. Granger sat but a few yards away, seemingly engrossed in a book, but she knew. She knew that Granger's eyes were fixed on Harry, fixed on those powerful movements, those seamless turns, the way his brows furrowed in intense concentration, an intensity that the Muggleborn craved, longed for, desired after.

She sat slightly apart from Granger, acutely aware of the rivalry that existed unspoken between them, but choosing to ignore it. Instead, she watched as the Gryffindor team practiced seamlessly as a unit, all save Weasley, who stuck out like a ripe red fruit amongst greenery.

It seemed as though only red could arouse her these days. She watched Weasley fly, hatred arising within her to burst like the taste of bile in her mouth. She despised Weasley. She despised his mistrust, his bigotry, his undeserved cockiness.

As practice ended, she avoided his disapproving glare and instead greeted Harry with a smile, a smile that was as warm as a late November dawn. The Boy Who Lived walked towards her, broom in hand, face flushed, hair mussed, post-Quidditch grin plastered upon his face. The confidence she had seen in flight was now gone, replaced by an awkward youth of sixteen as he crossed the pitch to see her.

"Hullo, Cho."

"Hullo, Harry."

Nothing else was said.

"I will see you back in the common room, Harry," Granger said, her voice cracking a bit too loudly in the crisp autumn air. He turned his head to face her, and the two of them shared a quiet look, its tenderness shouting louder than a million Quidditch fans.

"Okay, Hermione," Harry said, his cheeks stained red with the flush of flight. And more.

She watched as Harry and Granger locked eyes across the pitch, their shared emotion lingering upon the cool air and waited for a reaction to explode in her stomach. None came. She felt neither jealousy nor envy nor pain, only hatred and lust.

Granger broke away, loping down the stairs to join Weasley and his blood haired sister, leaving her and Harry alone.

Harry took her hand and led her downstairs, below the stands erected for inter-House games. She found this gentlemanly gesture endearing, although she felt the overture was wasted on her. Shyly, tentatively, Harry leaned forward and kissed her, kissed her with lips soft and young and innocent, boyish in their sweetness. She kissed him back with less than equal ardour. His kisses became slightly more insistent as his hands began to travel over her robes.

She wondered why Harry bothered to meet her after Quidditch practices. She herself could care less and most times it appeared as though Harry himself would rather be elsewhere. She wondered sometimes if it were her lips he kissed, or another girl's. Lips that belonged on a cream face, along with cinnamon eyes and chocolate locks.

She guided his hands over her breasts, listening as his breathing quickened, soft pants escaping from his mouth, stealing air from her lungs.

"Huh-huh-heh-Herm-"

She imagined the rest of the name that escaped in short breaths from his lips, the name of a girl with little beauty to recommend her but with enough cleverness to rival even the brightest members of her own House.

She let Harry shyly burrow his fingers under her clothing, feeling more like a benevolent teacher than an object of lust.

"Huh-huh-huh-"

His pants bled into the air, forming a complete word in a cloud of condensation.

"Harry, Harry, Harry-"

The voice belonged to a girl.

"Harry-Harry-Harry-"

He stopped abruptly.

They stared at each other, Harry surprised and slightly relieved, herself blank and beautiful.

She smiled slightly.

"Not today, Harry."

He did not say a word, but nodded slightly and gathered his broom and half-discarded robes and walked out into the sunshine, where his Pallas Athene waited to walk him back to his dorm.

Not ever again, she thought.

When the girl Weasley arrived, she was not surprised. Again, her footfalls were silent in the dewy grass.

"You let him go," the girl said simply. It was not an accusation. Cho felt a familiar, ghostly hand clutch painfully at her heart, ending in an odd prickly sensation around her face.

"Yes," she answered.

The redheaded girl did not speak again, but tentatively ran her fingers through Cho's dark, dark hair. Cho closed her eyes, eyes blank and black as coal, letting the girl Weasley's fingers slip through the strands like water. A sigh escaped her lips.

She felt the echo of her sigh run through the other girl. Cho opened her eyes, settling on the mass of fiery curls atop the girl's head. Trembling, she reached out to take a lock in her hand, expecting to be burned, marveling at its silken smoothness.

"Why aren't you sleeping, Cho?"

Her head snapped up, ensnaring the girl Weasley's fingers within strands of glittering black.

"What?"

How did she know? How could she have known about the nightmares, the sex, the shame?

"Your hair is going grey," said the other simply. "There are more than there were last time."

Nutmeg, she thought. Her eyes are the colour of nutmeg.

"I rather like it," the girl Weasley smiled.

The red locks felt warm with life between her fingertips. Warm like the breath on her lips that puffed like zephyrous breezes from Ginny's moist, red mouth. A mouth that suddenly seemed so close to hers, a mouth foreign and tantalising, full of promises that she had not yet tasted.

"Will I see you at the prefects' meeting tonight?" she asked, scarcely aware of her words, conscious only of the life the fire-headed girl could give her.

"If you'd like," Ginny breathed.

She released the scarlet locks of hair. Her words had been twisted like the strands of hair wrapped around the girl Weasley's fingers, spinning a web of subtlety around her. Her heart quickened, blood thrumming through her ears.

She was conscious only of that mouth that whispered unfulfilled promises with warm breath upon her lips.

"I would, very much," she said.

She did not hear Ginny's reply, only saw them glisten as the other girl licked her lips in anticipation.

Crimson, scarlet, red, and nutmeg, she thought.

Gently, Ginny untangled her fingers from her dark hair, dropping two more strands of grey to the ground.

"Tonight then," the redhead said.

"Tonight."

The irony was not lost on her.

She patrolled the corridors at night as she always did, searching out late-night wanderers and midnight snoggers, only to become one of their numbers at the end of her rounds. Scouring the hallways, she scrubbed out two Hufflepuff fourth-years from a dark corner and sent one lone Slytherin back to his common room after finding him hanging suspiciously about the girls' bathroom. She took one last perfunctory walk around the grounds, her shoes tapping _hypocrite, hypocrite, hypocrite _against the cold stone floors. She winced. Yes, she was a hypocrite, but not in the worst sense.

She was an involuntary hypocrite.

If Cho Chang had anything to say about her position, she would say she was the unwilling participant. But perhaps "unwilling" was not the word she was looking for. "Unwitting" was more like it.

She did not know when it had first started. It was as the gradual lightening of dawn, when the first flush of pink and red shot through the unending grey, happening so inconspicuously that when day finally did break, the moment of transformation was lost.

Her accusatory shoes brought her back to the statue of Elleria the Enlightened, before whom they came together without a word. Cho knew the girl's name, the colour of her hair, the taste of her lips, and the feel of her skin against her own.

Ginny.

At first Cho did not realize who the owner of the lips eagerly clinging to hers was. She merely welcomed the gentle contact, the hesitant wetness of arousal, and gave no thought to their sex, did not question their source.

"Cho."

She heard her name spoken from far away, muffled and low.

"Cho."

She closed her eyes and tried to disregard the insistent call that bored into her mind.

"Cho."

The warmth disappeared from Cho's lips. She made a small mew of protest.

"Cho. Look at me."

She slowly opened her eyes and found a face full of freckles. A face with brown eyes. A face she already knew.

"Ginny."

The other girl smiled.

Cho did not say a word. There was a stinging behind her eyes that she could not name, a pain that traveled from her eyes to her nose to her lips so that they trembled into a pout to suppress it.

Ginny's face softened and Cho wondered if there was some way the redhead could sense her hurt. The flame-haired nymph leaned forward, but before Cho could open her mouth to let her in, she felt the other girl's lips flutter delicately by the shell-like curve of her ear in a butterfly's whisper.

"Let's meet again tomorrow."

Cho again opened her mouth to speak, but Ginny pressed two fingers against Cho's lips as gently as a goodnight kiss.

"No, not like this," Ginny said. "Like...people. Normal people. People who don't need the cover of night to find each other."

Cho blinked, and then blinked faster, for doing so kept the stinging in her eyes at bay.

"When?"

The word fell from Cho's lips, barely tasted, barely savoured, barely questioned.

"After dinner," Ginny smiled. "By the lake."

Cho closed her eyes, the prickling feeling behind her eyelids almost unbearable. She felt the silken strands of crimson hair slip through her fingers like flame and she knew that she opened her eyes, Ginny would be gone.

Ginny was late.

She watched the sun set over the lake, a blood-orange sky against the endless grey landscape of cloud, mountain, and water. Dinner had been over that half-hour past, and as the last dregs of colour drained from the sky, she wondered if the night past was just another illusion, another dream she clutched at with desperate fingers as it slipped through the cracks of reality.

She was so very alone.

She was alone because of him.

She hated him.

She hated Cedric Diggory because she no longer loved him. She could not feel joy, or pain, or pleasure. She could only feel hate. She could only feel love. And because she could no longer love a ghost, she hated him.

She hated his memory, resented his lingering touch on her soul, despised the shackles of the past that chained her to his legacy. She tried to hate him, but once more, the remembrance of his hesitant smile, the gentle upsweep of his eyebrows, and the scent of his breath would steal into her waking mind, claiming her as his, forever his, imprisoned by his death. For even watching the sunset was not free of his touch. Watching the sun disappear behind the ridge-like mountains framing the lake was something she and Cedric had done once.

But only once.

There were so many things that she had Cedric had done only once before his life was cut short by the Dark Lord. They had danced only once. They had gone out to Puddlemere United vs. Tornado Quidditch match only once. They had spent the evening together discussing childhood memories only once. They had made love-

Never.

It was when she had given Ginny up for lost that the youngest Weasley appeared.

"How long have you been standing there?" Cho asked.

"Long enough," Ginny replied. The sunset threw a blush across her features, blurring her freckles from view, turning her skin a smooth, rosy cream. A breeze blew in from off the lake, bringing with it the smell of rain and water, and Ginny shivered. Cho watched as she folded her arms across her grey jumper, and subconsciously mirrored the redhead's movements, awash with chills as her arm grazed her nipples. Cho stared at Ginny, having learned long ago that silence was the best conduit of sound and desire.

In the light of the setting sun, the girl Weasley's eyes lit up like topaz. Cho wondered briefly what it would be like to reach forward and claim those eyes as her own, to wear around her neck Ginny's fiery, glittering brilliance. She would take strands of that vermilion hair and braid it into twine around her wrist, so that the other girl's passion would be her own, a constant reminder of the colour that Cho had lost so long ago.

The topaz eyes stared at Cho for a while before Ginny spoke.

"Do you want to sit down?"

Cho didn't reply, only stared back, eyes never wavering, entranced by such scarlet beauty. She thought of her hands, white and pale, her hair, dark and sleek, and she felt cold, so cold. Ginny was life, curls, freckles, rose-lips, cinnamon eyes, warmth.

Without waiting for Cho, Ginny herself sat down on a rock by the lakeside. Cho followed suit, eyes still basking in Ginny's aura.

Unbidden, the ghost of Cedric whispered in her ear, and she thought of dark hair, grey eyes, muscular planes, perfect teeth. He was all angles, Ginny was all curves, he was dark, Ginny was life, he was fair, Ginny was freckled. She did not want the image of the past superimposed onto the present, but the voice of Cedric would not leave her. She remembered her last words to him, the unspoken promise that had lain hidden in her speech, and wondered if he would hold it against her forever.

"Tomorrow's Saturday."

She was startled when she heard her own voice.

"It is," Ginny replied. The girl turned to Cho, her eyes expectant and patient. But for what, Cho did not know. "There's a Quidditch match. Slytherin against Hufflepuff."

Cho smiled softly. "Yes. The odds are on Slytherin this time around, I'm afraid. Macmillan's out with a dueling injury and their replacement Keeper hasn't had time to train properly."

Ginny made a sound of disgust. "It was that prat Malfoy. What an enormous prick."

Cho resisted the urge to comment on the actual size of the Pride of Slytherin and focused on Ginny's mouth instead as the other girl spoke about Quidditch. Her lips were thin, but not unattractive, softly pink and moist with pearly flecks of spit that disappeared under her darting tongue.

"It's probably going to rain tomorrow," Ginny said, glancing at the now-vanished sun. Cho gazed at the last flushes of light that streaked through the crowding clouds and thought of Ginny's red curls peaking out from beneath her grey cloak.

"We didn't have much of a chance to talk," Ginny said, rising from the dewy grass.

"No," Cho said softly.

Ginny extended a hand. Cho looked at it, with its elongated, slender fingers, oval-shaped fingernails, and capable-looking leanness, so very different from her own, from Cedric's, from Harry's, from all the males she had known.

Cho took it, Ginny's warmth spilling over into her own hand.

"What about tomorrow evening?" Ginny asked.

She felt his ghostly fingers tighten around her heart and her mouth trembled with the effort of keeping herself from doubling over in exquisite agony. Let go, Cedric, let go, she said to him.

But his fingers only grasped harder and through stinging eyes, Cho delivered Cedric's last words to Ginny.

"Tomorrow evening then."

The rain that had been threatening to fall all day finally made good on its promise shortly after dinner.

She had been hungry, but could only eat one or two bites. The hunger that drove her could not be satisfied by food, and it was with aching belly and empty mind she went out into the imminent storm to wait for Ginny, avoiding the questions of her Housemates, hiding from their probing eyes and pitying stares.

She wrapped her cloak more tightly around her against the chill of the rising wind. Black and grey strands whipped about her face, leaving red marks in their wake, like tracks of blood on spotless sheets. She watched as the lake began to ripple in the distance, smelled the arriving storm, hearing thin fingers drum against the surface of water to finally hit her in a deluge of rain.

She felt the rain soak through her clothing layer by layer, feeling first the weight of her cloak settle more heavily against her shoulders, then her jumper beneath growing colder as the wind blew harder, and at last braced herself for the first shock of rain against her bare skin as water seeped through her blouse.

The first touch of rain was like dead fingers running down her back. She shuddered, wondering if this was what it was like to be made love to by a ghost.

She wondered if she didn't like the thought.

She turned when she heard the squelch of shoes against wet grass. It was Ginny, her red hair shining through the grey mists like a beacon in the night.

"Inside!" Ginny called, her voice clear, ungarbled by the water running down her cheeks. Loping towards her with the easy grace of a gazelle, Ginny grabbed Cho's hand without preamble and led her back towards the castle.

When the giggles erupted from her, Cho thought with amazement that it was like stepping on bubbles that burst from inside her chest as stride for stride, she matched Ginny's slender legs en route to Hogwarts. Warmth spread from some core deep within her, spreading through her body like parchment-soaking ink, and she was suddenly aware of her fingers, a curiously pleasant ache had caught in her hands and she gripped Ginny's tightly, overtaken by giddiness.

The music of her giggles was harmonized and echoed in Ginny's laughter, and the two girls raced up the stone stairwells, tripping, stumbling, giggling, gasping, laughing, overtaken by a need to rushsomewhere, find someplace, and as soon as possible.

"In here," Ginny whispered. The girls stopped in front of a heavy oak door with intimidating brass handles. Their wet fingers scrabbled and grappled with the handles, their laughter condensing into misty clouds in the chill of the old castle.

"Like this-"

"No, here I-"

"Bugger!"

Shaking uncontrollably with mirth and cold, Cho reached into her cloak and pulled out her wand.

"_Alohomora_!"

The door fell open with a musty creak and they were both awash in a wave of cool, undisturbed, dry air. Shivering with more than cold now, Cho shut the door behind her, setting the latch when she felt Ginny's fingers run down her back, warm and inviting, unlike the ghostly wet rain fingers that had caressed her not long ago. She closed her eyes as those slender hands traced lightly up and down the graceful lines of her back.

"Incendio," she heard Ginny whisper and the room illuminated her face with warmth. A slow flush began from between her breasts, although the heat Cho felt in her face was not due to the fire now blazing merrily from the fireplace or the little flames dancing away on marble-white candles.

Suddenly Cho whirled around, her saturated cloak swinging about her heavily. She held Ginny's fingers tightly in her hand and crushed her lips to the other girl's. The slow mood was broken; once more it was a rush of slippery fingers, muffled gasps, a frantic race to undo clasps, to muffle each other's girlish giggles with wet lips and nipping teeth. Heavy thuds were heard as cloaks were thrown onto the stone floor, soft sooshes as jumpers were separated from soaked blouses, wet slaps as skin reluctantly relinquished its hold on various articles of clothing.

She did not flinch away when she felt Ginny's invasive fingers creep up the hem of her skirt, made no sound of protest as that hot, slippery tongue slid its way down the column of her neck. Suddenly, all the mattered was keeping her breathing even, to keep her herself from shivering, shaking so uncontrollably that she would fly apart.

To anchor herself, Cho concentrated on the feel of Ginny's fingers against her thigh, but it wasn't helping, nothing was helping. Soft, ticklish, Ginny's fingers were caressing, questioning, tentative, and tender, oh-so-tender. Her own fingers clenched involuntarily in the sodden material of Ginny's blouse and suddenly it seemed imperative that there be no more clothing between them. Desperately, Cho worked her trembling hands against the slippery buttons of Ginny's shirt, her fingers stiff from cold and shaking with anticipation. Faster, quicker, now-now-now, tears of frustration and joy mixing with rainwater on her cheeks, Cho tore, clawed, ripped at the thin cotton separating her from the feel of Ginny's warm skin.

But Ginny was slowing down, her bottom lip nudging hers with a gentle persistence, her slender fingers inching their way torturously up Cho's thigh. A soft moan of impatience escaped Cho, her hands abandoning their assault on Ginny's clothing, clutching at those teasing fingers, desperate pants puffing from her lips.

She only felt Ginny's smile against her mouth as the redheaded girl deliberately walked her fingers away from where Cho was frantic to have her. A slight scream of irritation only made Ginny giggle softly as she traced the crease of where Cho's leg met her hip, making patterns against her bare skin. Cho arched her back and wondered if the other girl wasn't whispering aphrodisiac spells beneath her breath.

"Tell me, Cho," Ginny whispered. "Tell me how you want it."

"I-I-I-"

Ginny moved in closer, her breasts pressed against Cho's erect nipples, wedging her way between her outspread legs. She was so close to her, so close. Cho was feeling lightheaded, dizzy, and at any moment, her legs were going to give out.

"How do you want it, Cho?" Ginny's hot breath insisted at her ear. "Tell me how you want it."

But Cho could not answer, all she could think about was keeping her arms from shivering, to keep herself from flying to pieces, to prevent herself from collapsing in a puddle of aroused goo on the stone floor.

"Tell me."

One step backward.

"Tell me."

Two steps backward.

"Tell me."

Three steps backward and then Cho felt the rough stone of the classroom wall against her back. There was no respite from Ginny's questing voice, her warm, moist breath, her invading fingers.

"Oh gods, I-I-"

Cho struggled to remember how to form words, how to coordinate her lips, her teeth, her tongue for some other function other than kissing. With sweet slowness, Ginny changed the course of her hands to slide along Cho's inner thigh, brushing panties drenched with more than rainwater.

"Tell me, tell me, tell me," Ginny's words echoed the panting rhythm of Cho's breaths.

Cho clutched Ginny's shoulders, but whether she was pushing the other girl away or crushing her closer, she wasn't sure.

"Tell me."

Ginny worked a finger beneath the elastic of Cho's underwear. Cho grasped Ginny tightly, opening her legs further, wrapping one around the other girl's waist.

"Tell me."

Two fingers.

"Tell me."

Three fingers clenched against the waist of her underwear and pulling.

"Tell me."

"Oh gods, fuck me. Fuck me now."

The words were screamed in a whisper as Ginny's fingers slipped inside.

Cho buried her face in the crook of where Ginny's neck met her shoulder in a delicious curve, muffling her screams. Her hands gripped Ginny's blouse again and pulled, the sound of tearing cloth echoing the shrieks and sirens going off in Cho's head. And suddenly it was her lips against warm skin, against feminine flesh, the smell, the texture, the taste different from that of all the men Cho remembered, if she had been capable of conscious thought. Dropping the ragged remains of Ginny's shirt around the other girl's waist, she attacked the hooks and eyelets that remained between her hands and Ginny's naked breasts.

And suddenly she remembered how to speak, but only one word rose from Cho's lips.

"Faster, faster, faster-"

Ginny fucked her faster and faster, fingers curling within Cho as her hips bucked and brushed against Ginny.

"Faster, faster, faster-"

Her thumbs were tracing circles around Ginny's pink nipples, mimicking Ginny's own thumbs.

"Oh gods, oh gods, oh gods-"

Coherent thoughts were slipping away one by one. Cho's eyes narrowed to slits as heavy eyelids slipped over dark eyes. Ginny's eyes slid closed, mirroring Cho's expression.

"Huh-huh-huh-"

The breaths of both girls mingled into rhythmic pants as Ginny's free hand slid down beneath the waistband of her own skirt.

"Unh-unh-unh-"

And it was bare skin, naked moans, mingled sighs of pleasure, hips bucking in rhythm, lips suckling erect nipples, tongues sliding over each other.

"Unhhhhhh-"

Ginny slumped against Cho, her red curls damply caressing Cho's face, her moans stifled against Cho's shoulder as her fingers clenched involuntarily inside Cho.

There was an explosion somewhere.

The windows burst open and colours flooded her vision. She was flying, flying somewhere beyond reach, beyond the reach of her studies, her academic concerns, her housemates, Harry, his Muggleborn girlfriend, Roger Davies-

Cedric.

Her trembling knees gave up their struggles and Cho fell to the ground, Ginny's weight pressed against her pleasantly. The two girls sat with shallow breaths against the stone floor, their cloaks discarded in the corner, Ginny's blouse in shreds about her waist, Ginny naked but for her skirt, Cho's tie askew about her neck, the buttons missing from Cho's shirt.

Neither girl said a word, but in Ginny's eyes still ran her persistent plea: Tell me, tell me, tell me.

But tell her what?

Ginny leaned close to place a soft kiss on Cho's shoulder. Cho shut her eyes.

Tell me, tell me, tell me.

Cho knew what words Ginny wanted to hear, but could not utter them.

Tell me, tell me, tell me.

Those three little words had been stillborn on Cho's lips ever since a boy with grey eyes passed out of her life, taking with him all colour, all laughter, all tears.

Tell me, tell me, tell me.

Although the rain had long since dried from their clothes, Cho felt something wet slide down her cheeks. She felt Cedric's ghostly fingers clench her heart, spelling with dead hands the word betrayal.

She had given Ginny what she never gave Cedric.

Cho opened her eyes and tasted the saltiness of her tears for the first time in two years. Ginny looked back at her with open eyes and the question still hanging unasked between them.

No, no, no, no. It wasn't supposed to happen this way. It was Cedric who was supposed to see these tears, Cedric who was supposed to have made her come, Cedric who was supposed to hear those three words that Cho was on the verge of saying.

And suddenly she was cold.

"No."

Confusion broke in Ginny's topaz eyes, luminous in the candlelight.

"I can't. I can't. I can't."

It was the same excuse, the same excuses she had made the night before he died, when the promise of this very night had transpired in Cedric's grey eyes. Excuses that Cho had tried to make up for by sleeping with half the male population at Hogwarts. She felt old, she felt used, she had seen it all, felt it all, all for a ghost who wouldn't let her go.

"I can't, I can't, I can't."

But the hurt in Ginny's eyes was new. The post-coital flush on her cheeks was new. The ecstatic climb she had just experienced was new.

Her breath hiccupped into sobs.

"Cho-" Ginny began.

"No, Ginny," she said, "Can't you see? I, I love-"

But she gathered her clothes and left before she could finish her sentence.

She was a glass house.

Cho knew exactly where to find her. If she had only looked harder before, she would have seen the emotions laid bare in Ginny's face, fragile, clear, and beautiful as crystal.

Tomorrow evening, she had told Cedric.

Tomorrow had come, and had brought with it Ginny Weasley.

Her footsteps brought her to the library, past the sharp glances of Madam Pince, to the small, overlooked diamond-paned window in the southeast corner.

Her red hair was distinctive and unmistakable, even from the distance Cho was standing. Cho's feet made sharp sounds against the marble floor of the library, announcing to the redheaded girl in the corner of her presence.

Ginny did not lift her head.

"They're waiting for you," Cho said.

Ginny did not answer.

"Your other prefect, Colin Creevy, is none too pleased with you."

The slight huffing of Ginny's shoulders indicated that she did not really care.

"Ginny..."

Cho slid in next to the redheaded girl. She fingered those flame curls, scarlet, crimson, and fire in her fingertips.

"Have you been sleeping, Ginny?"

The other girl's head snapped up.

"What?"

"You have a few grey hairs." Cho plucked them, smiling a bit as Ginny winced visibly.

Ginny's eyes searched hers, searching for the answer to the question that had been implicit between the two of them ever since that night had passed.

Cho did not tell her, but Ginny heard those three little words anyway.

A slow smile spread over the girl's freckled features, lighting her topaz eyes.

"They're not grey, Cho, they're blonde."

The smile was mirrored in Cho's face.

"Is that so."

The two girls stared at each other, remembering wet fingers, moist breaths, muffled pleas.

Cho stood up. Turning to face the redheaded girl framed by the setting sun, she extended her hand. Ginny looked at her outstretched hand. "Come on, they're waiting for you," Cho said.

Ginny took it.

"I'm waiting for you."


End file.
